This is the official blog of ex-Sgt Ellie Bloggs. I was a real live police constable then sergeant for twelve years, on the real live front line of England. I'm now a real live non-police person. All the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't (or didn't) pay my salary.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Let Us Pay

Churchgoers nationwide are supposed to pray to keep us safe, direct our Chief Constables wisely and help us to do our job better.

What you are probably not aware is that the Senior Management Team of Blandshire Constabulary actually embraced PRAYER as an official police tactic some years ago. It was around the time when the government introduced seven figure budget cuts for most forces, at the same time as increasing the workload of the average PC. Blandshire's response included:

The "roll-out" of Neighbourhood Policing, which is police jargon for getting civilians to do the job of a police officer.

Zero-based budgeting. Which means building your budget up from scratch without any of the big expensive things that take up all the money like police officers and training.

Reduction of official minimum staffing levels so that PCs could be lost from the frontline without dropping below these Health & Safety limits.

PRAYER to be the first choice response to all major/critical/serious incidents.

The official policy on Prayer can be found on the Force intranet under "Standard Operating Procedures". These are not generally distributed to the public at large, but I think I am safe enough in quoting a passage verbatim:"On realising that Blandshire Constabulary do not have sufficient means to respond to an incident whether through lack of staff, equipment or complete and utter systemic failure, the Duty Inspector should immediately attend the scene and begin to PRAY. The Prayer should be directed to the Lord God Almighty, although if the Lord God Almighty is not available then an Archangel can listen to the Prayer, providing the Lord God is informed as soon as reasonably practicable."The Prayer may be verbally uttered, but should be followed up in writing within 24 hours. It should contain the words 'we hope everything turns out ok' and 'please cover the arse of Blandshire Constabulary in the event that anything goes wrong'."

Whilst this policy has stood us in good stead for over five years now, we must not be complacent. The Senior Management Team are constantly reviewing the process of Prayer and hope that the Lord Almighty - and the Home Secretary - sends them the wisdom not to get a police officer killed this year. ***

In other news, the government is "not shying away" from another confrontation with the police as they plan to slash the budgets of five forces (to start with). Plans to recruit hundreds of new officers will be abandoned if this goes ahead.

God help us all.

*** Please note: This post was in no way written just to offend Christians. It is in fact supposed to offend all denominations of all religions. And, hopefully, the Home Secretary.

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24 Comments:

having a supernatural being on your side to watch your arse is great, but personally I'd rather have some more Police officers out there in the first place to reduce the risk of things going pearshaped in the first place.

"for the people"... One of us has missed someone's sarcasm. Either you are being sarcastic and I am missing it, or you are missing the sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek/(word I can't remember) in Ellie's post.

I'm part of one of the forces having the budget cut, and it's hugely affected me personally. In the linked article there's a quotation from some official person saying that each of the forces need to account for the rise in council tax, when the simple justification for the rise is that the government are, in some instances, using the wrong sort of formula to calculate the Government Grant and are therefore not giving the forces enough money in the first place.

Apologies if this comment doesn't make much sense, it's been a 32 hour day...

To increase Police visibility, to have enough back-up for our safety ie not be the only cop within 15 miles for 20 000 people, to have enough teams to attend all incidents, to have enough time to do our job properly and not rush etc

How much Housing/Council Tax benefit can I get?Can I get backdated benefit and how can I make a claim?How long will my entitlement continue?If I rent from a relative will I be able to claim Housing Benefit?I'm thinking about renting privately - will Housing Benefit cover all of my rent?If someone comes to live with me will this affect my Housing Benefit/Council Tax benefit?I'm claiming benefit - will someone come to visit me about my claim?What happens if I'm overpaid?

Don't worry - tomorrow 'we the people' will pray for you and, dare I say, love and believe in you as ever we did. You form part of the backbone of the country so how could we not wish you well?

Please don't be sarcastic or cynical. The vast majority of Brits value you and the work you do. Just look at the papers - we only wish there were more of you on the streets; we understand that you're tied up by targets and paperwork.

Which version of their God might the sad deluded religious types be on about? We are screwed anyway if its their non-interventionist 'free-will' version. I think I just saw fairies at the bottom of my garden...

Hey, don't knock the power of prayer, and faith in unseen spiritual forces, which helped save my life, more than once!My daily prayer is that the evil gits be removed from positions of power. I will just have to be patient, unless of course there are more "believers" in the force who could offer some back up on this "mission". Let us pray!

One wonders why they just cut out the middleman and pray for the invisible sky giant to stop the bad guys directly, allowing the police to get back to their primary duty of filing target quota forms? There are quite a few sects which deal with medical issues in just this manner and although the results are admittedly not quite as favourable as one might otherwise expect from omnipotence, it does have the rather pleasant knock-on effect of freeing up doctors to see the rest of us.